Books I read in 2024

 Each year I write a list of books I read during the year. This is the 2024 list:

1. Shantaram. A man escapes from prison in Australia and ends up in Bombay, India. It is a novel, but some parts come from the authors own experiences. The book may be 2200 pages on my iPad but it is very well written so it was a joy to read!   
2. Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is a company specializing in visual effects (vfx). It was founded to create the vfx for Star Wars. This book is the second in a trilogy and describes how ILM transitioned from making physical models, like the aircraft in Die Hard 2, to digital models, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.
3. Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects. This book is a prequel to Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm and focuses on how special effects were made before computers were available. They did have some primitive computers to control the cameras for the first three Star Wars movies, but the rest of the effects were miniatures, paintings, and camera tricks.
4. The making of Star Wars. This book is a biography on how the first Star Wars movie (as in episode 4) was made. You get to read about how George Lucas changed the manuscript, financing, how the casting went, the chaos during the filming, and how the special effects were made - and roughly 1/3 consists of photos and illustrations. If you want to read a book about how to make a movie, then you should read this one even if you are not interested in Star Wars.
5. The making of Star Wars: The empire strikes back. After reading the book on how the first Star Wars movie was made I thought the book on how the second move was made would be repetitive - but it was not. The reason is that the second movie was more complicated to make - and with 20 percent left of the movie to make they ran out of money.
6. The making of Star Wars: The return of the Jedi. The third book in the series on how the first three Star Wars movies were made. The third movie was even more complicated to make and with more special effects. It was interesting to learn how George Lucas hide the major plot events in the script, to avoid spoiler leaks, up to the point the actors had to learn just before filming a scene what would actually happen in that scene.
7. The MANIAC. The author describes this book as "a work of fiction based on fact." The first part is a dramatized biography on John von Neumann, who was a mathematician involved in the design of the nuclear bomb and the first computer. He was also interested in Artificial Intelligence. The second part of the book is a summary of how AI learned how to play the game Go.
8. When we cease to understand the world. Written by the same author as The MANIAC, this book is mainly about Schrödinger's cat - or quantum mechanics.
9. Extraordinary Insects: Weird. Wonderful. Indispensable. The Ones Who Run Our World. Consists of several shorter stories of how weird (and amazing) insects are. The author is also including spiders which are not insects but are kinda closely related to insects.   
10. The Complete Robot. Written by Isaac Asimov this book consists of several shorter science fiction stories with a robot theme. In each story the robot is not behaving as the designer of it thought it would. If you read his famous book I Robot the stories in that book are included in this book. Isaac Asimov was a productive author so you better use Wikipedia to figure out which book is part of which collection - and even then it's complicated. 
11. The Caves of Steel. Written by Isaac Asimov this book tells a science fiction story of what would happen if a man and a robot would have to solve a murder case. 
12. Robot Dreams. Written by Isaac Asimov this book consists of several shorter science fiction stories. Despite the name not all stories have a robot theme - and the stories with a robot theme were included in The Complete Robot - except for one story called Robot Dreams which was just 12 pages. Some of the other stories had an artificial intelligence theme - but some were unrelated to AI, such as one which was about what would happen if Earth would deliberately cut off a Mars colony from getting supplies.  
13. The Naked Sun. This is Isaac Asimov's second book on what would happen if a human and robot would have to team up to solve a murder. This time the murder happened on a distant planet where humans are living in luxury and are taken care of by robots.
14. Moscow X. Written by an ex CIA analyst this book tells the story of a CIA operation in Russia. He started writing it as the war happened and you can tell that he added some details here and there to make it up-to-date.
15. The Illusion of Life. Written by two Disney animators this book tells the story of how the classic Disney movies were made.
16. Spielberg: A retrospective. Written by a guy who multiple times interviewed the famous movie director Steven Spielberg, this book is basically a summary of most of the movies he made. Very little is written how the movies were made, most of it is about what the movies were about.
17. Samhällsbärarna. Swedish crime novel loosely based on the so called baseball-gang which was a gang of police who used rough methods.    
18. Svenska hackare (Swedish hackers). Sweden was early into the computer revolution so we have produced our fair share of hackers who caused some trouble on the Internet, from finding passwords to embassies to The Pirate Bay.
19. Worm. No one is really in control of the Internet. What happens if a computer worm infects multiple computers? Then people have to self-organize to try to save the Internet from doom. This happened in 2008/2009 when the worm Conficker infected multiple Windows machines.
20. Countdown to zero day. Tells the story of Stuxnet which was a series of Amercian and Israeli made digital worms that aimed to destroy Iranian technologies back in 2010.  
21. Sandworm. You should read this book after the book on Stuxnet because the events in this book takes place after Stuxnet. It tells the story of Sandworm which was a Russian hacker group responsible for among other a Ukraine power grid attack.  
22. How I rob banks. The author works as an ethical hacker and is hired by companies to test their securities. The book is filled with anecdotes how he could bypass security installations and manipulate people to enter buildings.